Principality of Lebanon
Encyclopedia
Principality of Lebanon existed as a Emirate inside the Ottoman Empire
until 1860 and was ruled by Maan dynasty and the Chehab dynasties.
In 1590, Fakhr-al-Din II
became successor to Korkmaz
. He was a skilled politician and described as a pupil of Machiavelli. Fakhr-al-Din II adjusted to the lifestyles of the Druzes, Christianity and Islam, according to his needs. He paid tribute to the Sultanate of the Ottoman Empire and shared the spoils of war with his masters. Eventually, Fakhr-al-Din II the was appointed Sultan of Lebanon, with full authority. He was considered one of the greatest rulers of the region, also across the Middle of Lebanon. But, his enemies and governors angered the Ottoman Sultanate. Hence, a campaign, calling for the arrest of Fakhr-al-Din II, found the deposed leader in Istanbul, where he was executed by hanging Shortly afterwards, the Emirate of Lebanon that lasted more than 500 years was replaced, instead of the emirate meteor.
Lebanese Emirate before Fakhr-al-Din II
Fahker al Din I was the first Prince of Lebanon and he ruled Lebanon and after him his successor Prince Korkmas after he was killed in a battle with the Turkish Army.
Lebanese Emirate under Fakhr-al-Din II
In 1590 the son of Karkmas the Prince Fakhr al Din II become his successor. His period was characterized by economic and cultural prosperity, and he had fought other Lebanese families to unite the people of Lebanon and seek independence from the Ottoman Empire, and to achieve this goal he had with Tuscany a military/ economical treaty.In 1613 Lebanon was attacked by he Turks who feared from the Lebanese-Tuscany treaty, although he didn't want to give up ground, he choose exile in Tuscany
leaving affairs in the hands of his brother Prince Yunis and his son Prince Ali Beg. Fakhr-al-Din's exile did not prompt the Lebanese army to surrender to Hafiz Ahmed Pasha's army. They maintained their positions while the military operations raged until Prince Yunus managed through negotiations and persuasion to bring an end to the killings, securing the retreat of the Ottoman army.
Hosted in Tuscany by the Medici Family, Fakhr-al-Din was welcomed by the grand duke Cosimo II, who housed him throughout his stay. Fakhr-al-Din had wished to enlist Tuscan assistance in the liberation of Lebanon, but was met with a refusal as Tuscany was unable to afford such an expedition. The prince soon gave up the idea, eventually realizing that such cooperation would only subject Lebanon to a new occupation. His stay nevertheless allowed him to witness Europe's cultural revival in the 17th century.
In 1618, political changes in the Ottoman sultanate had resulted in the removal of many of Fakhr-al-Din's enemies from power, signaling the prince's triumphant return to Lebanon soon after, upon which he was able quickly to reunite all the lands of Lebanon beyond the boundaries of its mountains; and having revenge from Emir Yusuf Pasha ibn Siyfa, attacking his stronghold in Akkar, destroying his palaces and taking control of his lands, and regaining the territories he had to give up in 1613 in Sidon, Tripoli, Bekaa among others. Under his rule, printing presses were introduced and Jesuit priests and Catholic nuns encouraged to open schools throughout the land.
Fakhreddine castle in Palmyra In 1623, the prince was betrayed by the Harfouch family who made arrangements with Mustafa Pasha, Mirmiran of Damascus, to launch an attack against him, resulting in the Battle of Majdel Anjar where Fakhr-al-Din's forces although outnumbered managed to capture Pacha and secure the Lebanese prince and his allies a much needed military victory,and he
took over Syria and Israel and Palestine from the Turks.
However, as time passed, the Ottomans seemed uncomfortable with the prince's increasing powers and extended relations with Europe. The promise they had made to the Medici family, regarding the Prince of Lebanon, was ignored. In 1632, Kuchuk Ahmed Pasha was named Muhafiz of Damascus, being a rival of Fakhr-al-Din and a friend of Sultan Murad IV, who ordered Kuchuk Ahmed Pasha and the sultanate's navy to attack Lebanon and depose Fakhr-al-Din.
This time, the prince had decided to remain in Lebanon and resist the offensive, but the death of his son Emir Ali Beik in Wadi el-Taym was the beginning of his defeat. He later took refuge in Jezzine's grotto, closely followed by Kuchuk Ahmed Pasha who caught eventually with him and his family.
Fakhr-al-Din was taken to Istanbul and appeared before the sultan.
Later, the sultan had Fakhr-al-Din and his family killed on 13 April 1635, in Constantinople, bringing an end to possibly one of the greatest eras in the history of Lebanon.
Mulhim Al Ma"an=
Fakhr ad Din was succeeded in 1635 by his nephew Mulhim Ma'n, who ruled through his death in 1658. (Fakhr ad Din's only surviving son, Husayn, lived the rest of his life as a court official in Constantinople.) Prince Mulhim exercised Iltizam
taxation rights in the Shuf, Gharb, Jurd, Matn, and Kisrawan districts of Lebanon. Mulhim's forces battled and defeated those of Mustafa Pasha, Beylerbey
of Damascus.
Ahmad and Korkmaz=
Following Mulhim's death, his sons Ahmad and Korkmaz entered into a power struggle with other Ottoman leaders. Contemporary historian Istifan al-Duwayhi reports that Korkmaz was killed in act of treachery by the Beylerbey of Damascus in 1662. In 1660, the Ottoman empire moved to reorganize the region, placing the sanjaks (districts) of Sidon-Beirut and Safed in a newly formed province of Sidon, a move seen by local Druze as an attempt to assert control. Ahmad emerged victorious in the power struggle among the Druze in 1667, but the Maʿnīs lost control of Safad and retreated to controlling the iltizam of the Shuf mountains and Kisrawan. Ahmad continued as local ruler through his death from natural causes, without heir, in 1697. During the Ottoman-Hapsburg war of 1683 to 1699, Ahmad Ma'n collaborated in a rebellion against the Ottomans which extended beyond his death. Iltizam rights in Shuf and Kisrawan passed to the rising Shihab family through female-line inheritance.
Bashir II was overthrown as wali when he backed Acre, and fled to Egypt, later to return and organize an army. Jumblatt gathered the Druze factions together, and the war became sectarian in character: the Maronites backing Bashir II, the Druze backing Bashir Jumblatt. Jumblatt declared a rebellion, and between 1821 and 1825 there were massacres and battles, with the Maronites attempting to gain control of the Mt. Lebanon district, and the Druze gaining control over the Biqa valley. In 1825 Bashir II defeated his rival and killed him after the battle of al Simqaniya. Bashir II was not a forgiving man and repressed the Druze, particularly in and around Beirut.
Bashir II, who had come to power through local politics and nearly fallen from power because of his increasing detachment from them, reached out for allies, allies who looked on the entire area as “the Orient” and who could provide trade, weapons and money, without requiring fealty and without, it seemed, being drawn into endless internal squabbles. He disarmed the Druze and allied with France, governing in the name of the Egyptian Pasha Muhammad Ali, who entered Lebanon and formally took overlordship in 1832. For the remaining 8 years, the sectarian and feudal rifts of the 1821–1825 conflict were heightened by the increasing economic isolation of the Druze, and the increasing wealth of the Maronites.
during the Morea campaign due to the intervention of European powers sinking his naval fleet, the wāli of Egypt, Muhammad Ali
, sought the province of Syria, which had been promised to him by the Ottoman government if he succeeded in the war. When the Porte refused to give him the province, Muhammad Ali
, raised an army under his son Ibrahim Pasha to occupy the province and bring it under Egyptian control. Bashir II had sough refuge in Egypt during the aforementioned troubled times in Lebanon from 1821–1822 and had become an ally of Muhammad Ali, thus his help was sought to help secure Egyptian rule in the province. During the occupation, Ibrahim Pasha and Bashir II enacted high taxes, eventually producing resistance, and Bashir II’s provision of Christian forces in battles against the Druze may have served as a source of future sectarian tensions. Bashir II had previously attempted to not appear as favoring Maronite to the degree that he was required to under the Egyptian occupation, however as his help was required to hold the territory, Muhammad Ali was insistent that he provide forces to his son, even threatening Bashir II personally when he appeared to be hesitating in bringing his soldiers., The occupation also introduced social measures that raised the legal rights of Christians in the area and imposed conscription and disarmament.
Lebanese Civil War 1860
In 1860, this would boil back into full scale sectarian war, when the Maronites began openly opposing the power of the Ottoman Empire. Another destabilizing factor was France's support for the Maronite Christians against the Druze which in turn led the British to back the Druze, exacerbating religious and economic tensions between the two communities. The Druze took advantage of this and began burning Maronite villages. The Druze had grown increasingly resentful of the favoring of the Maronites by Bashir II, and were backed by the Ottoman Empire and the wali of Damascus in an attempt to gain greater control over Lebanon; the Maronites were backed by the French, out of both economic and political expediency. The Druze began a military campaign that included the burning of villages and massacres, while Maronite irregulars retaliated with attacks of their own. However, the Maronites were gradually pushed into a few strongholds and were on the verge of military defeat when the Congress of Europe intervened and established a commission to determine the outcome. The French forces deployed there were then used to enforce the final decision. The French accepted the Druze as having established control and the Maronites were reduced to a semi-autonomous region around Mt Lebanon, without even direct control over Beirut itself. The Province of Lebanon that would be controlled by the Maronites, but the entire area was placed under direct rule of the governor of Damascus, and carefully watched by the Ottoman Empire.
The long siege of Deir al Qamar found a Maronite garrison holding out against Druze forces backed by Ottoman soldiers; the area in every direction was despoiled by the besiegers. In July 1860, with European intervention threatening, the Turkish government tried to quiet the strife, but Napoleon III of France sent 7,000 troops to Beirut and helped impose a partition: The Druze control of the territory was recognized as the fact on the ground, and the Maronites were forced into an enclave, arrangements ratified by the concert of Europe in 1861. They were confined to a mountainous district, cut off from both the Biqa and Beirut, and faced with the prospect of ever-growing poverty. Resentments and fears would brood, ones which would resurface in the coming decades.
It is estimated that more than 4,000 Christians were killed in the conflict, with another 4,000 dying of destitution. Furthermore, more than 100,000 were made homeless.
This Moutasarrifiat system lasted from 1861 till 1918.
2-Karkmus I (1544–1584)
3-Fakhr-al-Din II (1572–1635)
4-Malham al Maani (1635–1658)
5- Karkum II (1658–1662)
6- Ahmad al Maani (1662–1697)
7- Bashir I Shahabi (1697–1706)
8- Haidar Shahabi (1706–1729)
9-Molham Shahabi (1729–1754)
10-Ahmad and Monsour Shahabi (1754–1763)
11- Youssef Shahabi (1763–1788)
12-Bahir II Shahabi (1788–1840)
13- Bashir III Shahabi (1840–1842)
14-Omar Pasha Turkish wali (de facto 1842)
1-Haidar abi almeaa (1842–1858)
2-Bashir abi almeaa (1854–1858)
3- Youssef Abi Karam (1860)
1-Ahamd Arslan (1842–1845)
2-Ameen Arslan (1845–1858)
3-Mohamad Arslan (1858–1860)
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
until 1860 and was ruled by Maan dynasty and the Chehab dynasties.
Creation
In 1516, Sultan Selim I took control of Lebanon and the mountainous regions of Syria and Palestine. The administration of these areas, belonging to Fakhr al-Din I, whose family was concerned, made loyalty to the higher section. As a strategy to evade the payment of tribute to them, Sultan Selim's attempts managed to rattle his Turkish masters. He decided to extend his direct influence across Lebanon, but the landowners and peasants of Lebanon both resisted. IIn 1590, Fakhr-al-Din II
Fakhr-al-Din II
Emir Fakhr-al-Din ibn Maan was the 1st prince of the State of Lebanon which has self-governed under the Ottoman Empire between the 17th and 19th centuries. Son of Prince Qorqmaz ibn Maan and Sit Nasab of the Tanukhi family, he was given the title "Emir" or Prince in Arabic because the Maan...
became successor to Korkmaz
Korkmaz
Korkmaz is a Turkish surname and may refer to:*Bülent Korkmaz, Turkish footballer and coach*Egemen Korkmaz, Turkish footballer*Inessa Korkmaz, Russian-Azerbaijani volleyball player*Mert Korkmaz, Turkish footballer*Ümit Korkmaz, Austrian footballer...
. He was a skilled politician and described as a pupil of Machiavelli. Fakhr-al-Din II adjusted to the lifestyles of the Druzes, Christianity and Islam, according to his needs. He paid tribute to the Sultanate of the Ottoman Empire and shared the spoils of war with his masters. Eventually, Fakhr-al-Din II the was appointed Sultan of Lebanon, with full authority. He was considered one of the greatest rulers of the region, also across the Middle of Lebanon. But, his enemies and governors angered the Ottoman Sultanate. Hence, a campaign, calling for the arrest of Fakhr-al-Din II, found the deposed leader in Istanbul, where he was executed by hanging Shortly afterwards, the Emirate of Lebanon that lasted more than 500 years was replaced, instead of the emirate meteor.
Lebanese Emirate before Fakhr-al-Din IIFakhr-al-Din IIEmir Fakhr-al-Din ibn Maan was the 1st prince of the State of Lebanon which has self-governed under the Ottoman Empire between the 17th and 19th centuries. Son of Prince Qorqmaz ibn Maan and Sit Nasab of the Tanukhi family, he was given the title "Emir" or Prince in Arabic because the Maan...
Fahker al Din I was the first Prince of Lebanon and he ruled Lebanon and after him his successor Prince Korkmas after he was killed in a battle with the Turkish Army. Lebanese Emirate under Fakhr-al-Din IIFakhr-al-Din IIEmir Fakhr-al-Din ibn Maan was the 1st prince of the State of Lebanon which has self-governed under the Ottoman Empire between the 17th and 19th centuries. Son of Prince Qorqmaz ibn Maan and Sit Nasab of the Tanukhi family, he was given the title "Emir" or Prince in Arabic because the Maan...
In 1590 the son of Karkmas the Prince Fakhr al Din II become his successor. His period was characterized by economic and cultural prosperity, and he had fought other Lebanese families to unite the people of Lebanon and seek independence from the Ottoman Empire, and to achieve this goal he had with Tuscany a military/ economical treaty.In 1613 Lebanon was attacked by he Turks who feared from the Lebanese-Tuscany treaty, although he didn't want to give up ground, he choose exile in TuscanyTuscany
Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....
leaving affairs in the hands of his brother Prince Yunis and his son Prince Ali Beg. Fakhr-al-Din's exile did not prompt the Lebanese army to surrender to Hafiz Ahmed Pasha's army. They maintained their positions while the military operations raged until Prince Yunus managed through negotiations and persuasion to bring an end to the killings, securing the retreat of the Ottoman army.
Hosted in Tuscany by the Medici Family, Fakhr-al-Din was welcomed by the grand duke Cosimo II, who housed him throughout his stay. Fakhr-al-Din had wished to enlist Tuscan assistance in the liberation of Lebanon, but was met with a refusal as Tuscany was unable to afford such an expedition. The prince soon gave up the idea, eventually realizing that such cooperation would only subject Lebanon to a new occupation. His stay nevertheless allowed him to witness Europe's cultural revival in the 17th century.
In 1618, political changes in the Ottoman sultanate had resulted in the removal of many of Fakhr-al-Din's enemies from power, signaling the prince's triumphant return to Lebanon soon after, upon which he was able quickly to reunite all the lands of Lebanon beyond the boundaries of its mountains; and having revenge from Emir Yusuf Pasha ibn Siyfa, attacking his stronghold in Akkar, destroying his palaces and taking control of his lands, and regaining the territories he had to give up in 1613 in Sidon, Tripoli, Bekaa among others. Under his rule, printing presses were introduced and Jesuit priests and Catholic nuns encouraged to open schools throughout the land.
Fakhreddine castle in Palmyra In 1623, the prince was betrayed by the Harfouch family who made arrangements with Mustafa Pasha, Mirmiran of Damascus, to launch an attack against him, resulting in the Battle of Majdel Anjar where Fakhr-al-Din's forces although outnumbered managed to capture Pacha and secure the Lebanese prince and his allies a much needed military victory,and he
took over Syria and Israel and Palestine from the Turks.
However, as time passed, the Ottomans seemed uncomfortable with the prince's increasing powers and extended relations with Europe. The promise they had made to the Medici family, regarding the Prince of Lebanon, was ignored. In 1632, Kuchuk Ahmed Pasha was named Muhafiz of Damascus, being a rival of Fakhr-al-Din and a friend of Sultan Murad IV, who ordered Kuchuk Ahmed Pasha and the sultanate's navy to attack Lebanon and depose Fakhr-al-Din.
This time, the prince had decided to remain in Lebanon and resist the offensive, but the death of his son Emir Ali Beik in Wadi el-Taym was the beginning of his defeat. He later took refuge in Jezzine's grotto, closely followed by Kuchuk Ahmed Pasha who caught eventually with him and his family.
Fakhr-al-Din was taken to Istanbul and appeared before the sultan.
Later, the sultan had Fakhr-al-Din and his family killed on 13 April 1635, in Constantinople, bringing an end to possibly one of the greatest eras in the history of Lebanon.
Mulhim Al Ma"an=
Fakhr ad Din was succeeded in 1635 by his nephew Mulhim Ma'n, who ruled through his death in 1658. (Fakhr ad Din's only surviving son, Husayn, lived the rest of his life as a court official in Constantinople.) Prince Mulhim exercised Iltizam
Iltizam
An Iltizam was a form of tax farm that appeared in the 17th century in Ottoman Egypt. Iltizams were sold off by the government to wealthy notables, who would then reap up to five times the amount they had paid by taxing the peasants and extracting agricultural production...
taxation rights in the Shuf, Gharb, Jurd, Matn, and Kisrawan districts of Lebanon. Mulhim's forces battled and defeated those of Mustafa Pasha, Beylerbey
Beylerbey
Beylerbey is the Ottoman and Safavid title used for the highest rank in the hierarchy of provincial administrators It is in western terms a Governor-general, with authority...
of Damascus.
Ahmad and Korkmaz=
Following Mulhim's death, his sons Ahmad and Korkmaz entered into a power struggle with other Ottoman leaders. Contemporary historian Istifan al-Duwayhi reports that Korkmaz was killed in act of treachery by the Beylerbey of Damascus in 1662. In 1660, the Ottoman empire moved to reorganize the region, placing the sanjaks (districts) of Sidon-Beirut and Safed in a newly formed province of Sidon, a move seen by local Druze as an attempt to assert control. Ahmad emerged victorious in the power struggle among the Druze in 1667, but the Maʿnīs lost control of Safad and retreated to controlling the iltizam of the Shuf mountains and Kisrawan. Ahmad continued as local ruler through his death from natural causes, without heir, in 1697. During the Ottoman-Hapsburg war of 1683 to 1699, Ahmad Ma'n collaborated in a rebellion against the Ottomans which extended beyond his death. Iltizam rights in Shuf and Kisrawan passed to the rising Shihab family through female-line inheritance.
Prince Bashir Shihab II
In 1788 Bashir Shihab II (sometimes spelled Bachir in French sources) would rise to become the Emir. Born into poverty, he was elected emir upon the abdication of his predecessor, and would rule under Ottoman suzerainty, being appointed wali or governor of Mt Lebanon, the Biqa valley and Jabal Amil. Together this is about two thirds of modern day Lebanon. He would reform taxes and attempt to break the feudal system, in order to undercut rivals, the most important of which was also named Bashir: Bashir Jumblatt, whose wealth and feudal backers equaled or exceeded Bashir II – and who had increasing support in the Druze community. In 1822 the Ottoman wali of Damascus went to war with Acre, which was allied with Muhammad Ali, the pasha of Egypt. As part of this conflict one of the most remembered massacres of Maronite Christians by Druze forces occurred, forces that were aligned with the wali of Damascus. Jumblatt represented the increasingly disaffected Druze, who were both shut out from official power and angered at the growing ties with the Maronites by Bashir II, who was himself a Maronite Christian.Bashir II was overthrown as wali when he backed Acre, and fled to Egypt, later to return and organize an army. Jumblatt gathered the Druze factions together, and the war became sectarian in character: the Maronites backing Bashir II, the Druze backing Bashir Jumblatt. Jumblatt declared a rebellion, and between 1821 and 1825 there were massacres and battles, with the Maronites attempting to gain control of the Mt. Lebanon district, and the Druze gaining control over the Biqa valley. In 1825 Bashir II defeated his rival and killed him after the battle of al Simqaniya. Bashir II was not a forgiving man and repressed the Druze, particularly in and around Beirut.
Bashir II, who had come to power through local politics and nearly fallen from power because of his increasing detachment from them, reached out for allies, allies who looked on the entire area as “the Orient” and who could provide trade, weapons and money, without requiring fealty and without, it seemed, being drawn into endless internal squabbles. He disarmed the Druze and allied with France, governing in the name of the Egyptian Pasha Muhammad Ali, who entered Lebanon and formally took overlordship in 1832. For the remaining 8 years, the sectarian and feudal rifts of the 1821–1825 conflict were heightened by the increasing economic isolation of the Druze, and the increasing wealth of the Maronites.
Lebanese Emirate under Egyptian Occupation
After the failure to put down the insurrection in some of the Greek provinces of the Ottoman EmpireOttoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
during the Morea campaign due to the intervention of European powers sinking his naval fleet, the wāli of Egypt, Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali is an American former professional boxer, philanthropist and social activist...
, sought the province of Syria, which had been promised to him by the Ottoman government if he succeeded in the war. When the Porte refused to give him the province, Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali is an American former professional boxer, philanthropist and social activist...
, raised an army under his son Ibrahim Pasha to occupy the province and bring it under Egyptian control. Bashir II had sough refuge in Egypt during the aforementioned troubled times in Lebanon from 1821–1822 and had become an ally of Muhammad Ali, thus his help was sought to help secure Egyptian rule in the province. During the occupation, Ibrahim Pasha and Bashir II enacted high taxes, eventually producing resistance, and Bashir II’s provision of Christian forces in battles against the Druze may have served as a source of future sectarian tensions. Bashir II had previously attempted to not appear as favoring Maronite to the degree that he was required to under the Egyptian occupation, however as his help was required to hold the territory, Muhammad Ali was insistent that he provide forces to his son, even threatening Bashir II personally when he appeared to be hesitating in bringing his soldiers., The occupation also introduced social measures that raised the legal rights of Christians in the area and imposed conscription and disarmament.
The Civil War 1841
The discontent grew to open rebellion, fed by both Ottoman and British money and support: Bashir II fled, the Ottoman empire reasserted control and Mehmed Hüsrev Pasha, whose sole term as Grand Vizier ran from 1839 to 1841. Another member of the Shihab family become the Prince, who styled himself Bashir III. Bashir III, coming on the heels of a man who by guile, force and diplomacy had dominated Lebanon and the Biqa for 52 years, did not last long. In 1841 conflicts between the impoverished Druze and the Maronite Christians exploded: There was a massacre of Christians by the Druze at Deir al Qamar, and the fleeing survivors were slaughtered by Ottoman regulars.Al Maqumyateen and the division to 2 districts
The Ottomans attempted to create peace by dividing Lebanon into a Christian district and a Druze district, but this would merely create geographic powerbases for the warring parties, and it plunged the region back into civil conflict which included not only the sectarian warfare but a Maronite revolt against the Feudal class, which ended in 1858 with the overthrow of the old feudal system of taxes and levies. The situation was unstable: the Maronites lived in the large towns, but these were often surrounded by Druze villages living as perioikoi. Lebanese Civil War 18601860 Lebanon conflictThe 1860 Lebanon conflict was the culmination of a peasant uprising which began in the north of Lebanon as a rebellion of Maronite peasants against their Druze overlords. It soon spread to the south of the country where the rebellion changed its character, with Druze turning against the Maronite...
In 1860, this would boil back into full scale sectarian war, when the Maronites began openly opposing the power of the Ottoman Empire. Another destabilizing factor was France's support for the Maronite Christians against the Druze which in turn led the British to back the Druze, exacerbating religious and economic tensions between the two communities. The Druze took advantage of this and began burning Maronite villages. The Druze had grown increasingly resentful of the favoring of the Maronites by Bashir II, and were backed by the Ottoman Empire and the wali of Damascus in an attempt to gain greater control over Lebanon; the Maronites were backed by the French, out of both economic and political expediency. The Druze began a military campaign that included the burning of villages and massacres, while Maronite irregulars retaliated with attacks of their own. However, the Maronites were gradually pushed into a few strongholds and were on the verge of military defeat when the Congress of Europe intervened and established a commission to determine the outcome. The French forces deployed there were then used to enforce the final decision. The French accepted the Druze as having established control and the Maronites were reduced to a semi-autonomous region around Mt Lebanon, without even direct control over Beirut itself. The Province of Lebanon that would be controlled by the Maronites, but the entire area was placed under direct rule of the governor of Damascus, and carefully watched by the Ottoman Empire.The long siege of Deir al Qamar found a Maronite garrison holding out against Druze forces backed by Ottoman soldiers; the area in every direction was despoiled by the besiegers. In July 1860, with European intervention threatening, the Turkish government tried to quiet the strife, but Napoleon III of France sent 7,000 troops to Beirut and helped impose a partition: The Druze control of the territory was recognized as the fact on the ground, and the Maronites were forced into an enclave, arrangements ratified by the concert of Europe in 1861. They were confined to a mountainous district, cut off from both the Biqa and Beirut, and faced with the prospect of ever-growing poverty. Resentments and fears would brood, ones which would resurface in the coming decades.
It is estimated that more than 4,000 Christians were killed in the conflict, with another 4,000 dying of destitution. Furthermore, more than 100,000 were made homeless.
The Disestablished and Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate
On September 5, 1860, an international commission composed of France, Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia and the Ottoman Empire met to investigate the causes of the events of 1860 and to recommend a new administrative and judicial system for Lebanon that would prevent the recurrence of such events. The commission members agreed that the partition of Mount Lebanon in 1843 between Druze and Christians had been responsible for the massacre. Hence, in the Statute of 1861 Mount Lebanon was separated from Syria and reunited under a non-Lebanese Christian mutasarrif (governor) appointed by the Ottoman sultan, with the approval of the European powers. [1] The mutasarrif was to be assisted by an administrative council of twelve members from the various religious communities in Lebanon. Each of the six religious groups inhabiting the Lebanon (Maronites, Druzes, Sunni, Shi’a, Greek Orthodox and Greek Uniates) elected two members to the council.This Moutasarrifiat system lasted from 1861 till 1918.
Princes of Lebanon from 1516 until 1860
1- Fakhr-al-Din I (1516–1544)2-Karkmus I (1544–1584)
3-Fakhr-al-Din II (1572–1635)
4-Malham al Maani (1635–1658)
5- Karkum II (1658–1662)
6- Ahmad al Maani (1662–1697)
7- Bashir I Shahabi (1697–1706)
8- Haidar Shahabi (1706–1729)
9-Molham Shahabi (1729–1754)
10-Ahmad and Monsour Shahabi (1754–1763)
11- Youssef Shahabi (1763–1788)
12-Bahir II Shahabi (1788–1840)
13- Bashir III Shahabi (1840–1842)
14-Omar Pasha Turkish wali (de facto 1842)
- North Lebanon(1842–1860) :
1-Haidar abi almeaa (1842–1858)
2-Bashir abi almeaa (1854–1858)
3- Youssef Abi Karam (1860)
- South Lebanon(1842–1860) :
1-Ahamd Arslan (1842–1845)
2-Ameen Arslan (1845–1858)
3-Mohamad Arslan (1858–1860)
External links
- http://countrystudies.us/lebanon/
- http://countrystudies.us/lebanon/16.htm
- http://countrystudies.us/lebanon/17.htm
- http://countrystudies.us/lebanon/18.htm